History as Fiction and Fiction as History: Reading Doctorow's Ragtime
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Department of English
Abstract
Edgar Lawerence Doctrow'sRagtime(1975) is a novel which ironizes racismat the
turn-of-the century inAmerica. The racial discrimination between thewhites and theblacks
has been explained through the resistance tovandalization of Model T Ford of the colored
man,CoalhouseWalker bythewhites. The black people are brutally oppressed and exploited
by thewhites. Coalhouse Walker revolts against whites' oppression. In the novel Ragtime,
Doctorow has patterned the revolt of Coalhouse Walker after the Civil RightsMovement of
the1960s in America. The study highlights a reconditioning of traditional historiography
through Doctorow's writing back of the history of black radicalism in the history of the
Ragtime Era(1900-1920s). Doctorow has written the history of theRagtime Era in fictional
form by highlighting thecontemporary marginal issues through revisionist perspective.The
way Doctorow highlights the issue of marginalization ruptures the grand narrative of the
Ragtime Era.